Matt Slick Bible Study, Ruth 4

Four. There it goes. All right. Okay, we're live. Good. All right, everybody. We've got a little bit of a five-minute late start here. I'll pray, and we'll just jump in. We're going to finish up the book of Ruth, chapter four, and it'll be interesting.

There's some little tidbits in there that are fun, and we'll get to it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for today. We thank you, Lord, that you have given us the book of Ruth, and we ask, Lord, that you would open it to us, open our hearts to it, that you would speak to us through it.

Lord Jesus, I ask for your mercy and your kindness on all of us who are here, who are listening, and who are here in this house. Ask, Lord, for your mercy on them, and, Lord, on me as well, to speak truth according to your kindness, your grace, and according to your will.

We ask this, Jesus, your precious name. Amen. Excuse me. Okay. All right. Hello, Mark, Jude, Perdun. Did anybody ever say Perdun, you? Got any Perdun? Sorry. All right. Let's get right in. Ruth, chapter four, verse one.

Boaz at the Town Gate and the Kinsman-Redeemer Custom

Oh, interesting. Now, Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by. So he said, turn aside, friend. Sit down here. He turned aside and sat down.

So this is probably the town gate where he would go to, because most of the cities, most of the towns had a major gate that people kind of go through. It became a place of discussion, debate, introductions, just kind of like a port of entry, so to speak.

And often the elders would sit at the gates, and they would have their seats or chairs, and people would bring issues to them and talk about things, because these elders were usually wise men. They weren't women.

They were men who would do this, generally speaking. So now the man, the one who has next in line of kingdom and redeemer is nameless, but in the culture at the time, they would have known his name, of course.

And it seems maybe that since Boaz says, come here and sit down, doesn't ask him to, he politely tells him to. And so the man says, okay, it could be because Boaz is kind of rich and successful, and generally people who are rich and successful kind of garner a little bit more influence than others.

He took 10 men from the elders of the city and said, sit down here. So they sat down. So Boaz wanted official witnesses. It didn't have to necessarily be 10 as if it was some cultural norm or some biblical precedent.

There's 10 commandments, of course. We have 10 fingers, 10 toes, 10, so is there a relationship? I really don't know. But anyway, 10 elders of the city and said, sit down here. So they sat down. So he wanted official witnesses to what was going to happen, because what he's going to do is he's going to talk to the kinsman redeemer.

He wants to marry Ruth, but the kinsman redeemer, who's one step closer to her, you got to deal with that first. And if he wants to marry, that's fine. He can do his job. But these officials would be the, generally speaking, were the heads of the families.

And so what's going to happen? I'm we've already gone through it. Do it every 25, five through nine, a couple, three times. Just going to read it again, because this is what's important here. Just culture and it's Bible.

When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, my husband's brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel.

He is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me. That thing is interesting because a woman is saying, you got to do this. This is your job. I can, it's interesting. Anyway, then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him.

And if he persists and says, I do not desire to take her, then his brother's wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall declare, thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.

All right, so this is the cultural biblical background to what's going on here. Now, of course, there are hundreds of years of separation between this and the time of Ruth, hundreds and hundreds of years.

Now, verse three, then he said to the closest relative, now remember the setting is there, and there's probably other people as well, because you know that they're going to know about Naomi. They're going to know about Ruth.

They know about Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, the 10 elders at the city. This is news. So most probably people are there milling around, watching and paying attention. All right. So he said to the closest relative, Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to her brother Elimelech.

Now, I don't know why she had to sell the land, and the Bible doesn't say why, but this is the first mention of she's got to sell the land, maybe to pay off debts, maybe because the woman was not really supposed to be the one who held property.

It was up to the men in the family to hold property. So it might be that she was doing the process of selling the land, but it might go to someone outside the family, and it could be a woman's way of kind of prompting a little bit to get things done.

Okay. Because remember, Naomi said to Ruth, you go over to where Boaz is, cover yourself with his cloak, and you do this, you do that. So the women are getting things done. A lot of times, which is the case, men sit around and don't do much.

And then the women kind of prompt them a little bit, and they get things going. That's how it is sometimes. And she did it very politely and stuff, with respect and everything. So anyway, as far as we know, she probably, like I said, probably didn't have any right of inheritance.

Okay. But she wanted to sell it to the kinsman redeemer and keep it in the family. That was Naomi. Now, in the parable of the prodigal son, when the son said, I want my inheritance, he was saying that he wants his father dead because he wouldn't get the inheritance until after he saw the father died.

Then he went and took his earnings, his properties, whatever it is, and he went to another land and wasted it there. If he had land in his name and went to another area and then sold the land to outside the family, that's a great scandal, great scandal.

It's interesting when we go through the parables, if we ever do that. But anyway, most probably the closest relative was aware of the cost of the land because it would be something you'd discuss. What else are you going to discuss?

You know, the Brandon administration? No. You know, the lunar landings, the Mars rovers? What are you going to discuss? You're going to discuss what's happening right there in town and things like that.

So verse four, so I thought to inform you, saying, buy it before those who are sitting here and before the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if not, tell me that I may know for there is no one but you to redeem it and I am after you.

And he said, I'll redeem it. So this unnamed man says, okay, I'll redeem the land. Now, what does that mean? We haven't told you. You're also going to marry Ruth to get the land. Now, if he bought the land and there was no woman to have to raise up seed to or sons to, then that would mean he'd keep the land.

But if he had a wife and he had to go into her and raise up children, a son for the brother or the next in line, then when that son became of age, the land would revert to him. Now that could be a detriment financially to a group of people, a man, a family, because he'd have to take money to buy that land.

But at least it'd be in his family. He had the potential to sell it. But if he's got to have the wife and raise up seed for the brother, then the money he would have spent for that land, in a sense, is going to be lost.

So it could be a huge financial burden. But don't want to say this guy, just some schlep who doesn't want to do his duty, but there's related information to it. All right. Then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased of his inheritance.

So it's like, I don't know if there's any scheming there. You've got to do this, you've got to do that. And then you also got to do the wife thing and oh, well, back the truck up. So he's a little bit surprised about this, it looks like, and he must marry Ruth, a Moabitess, not a Jew, Jewess, but a Moabitess.

But Ruth, however, is now adopting the ways of Judaism. And yet she's still kind of an outsider. She'd have a different accent, wouldn't know the culture, wouldn't know a lot of stuff, might or might not know the language.

I don't know what the context there would be, but it doesn't really matter. At this point, he probably spoke the same kind of language, because Moabite, really close to, not too far from Jerusalem, but nevertheless.

And so, okay, verse six, so the closest relative said, I cannot redeem it for myself because I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Redeem it for yourself. You may have my right of redemption for I cannot redeem it.

So now that there's full disclosure, the closest relative says, no, thank you. Like I said, maybe it's because it might be a significant expense, but he's willing to endure an expense if the land is his, will stay his, and it's an asset to his family and his children.

It doesn't say he has children, but in that culture, they married pretty quickly, pretty early, because generally speaking, they were arranged marriages. And they were often betrothed, I think, 16, 17 years old, and time to get married and start having babies and be blessed of God.

That was one of the things that was kind of required in that culture. So Elimelech knows that if he's got to marry Ruth, then this issue with the land and stuff. Now, there's an interesting thing to think about here.

Let's just say the kinsman redeemer, the closest redeemer, let's just say he did buy it, and he did take Ruth as his wife, and he was going to lose the right of the land later on. Let's just say that's the case.

Then there would be a representation, a type of Christ in that, because Jesus redeems us, and there's nothing he gets back from us in it. Now, this doesn't mean here that the typology is related to the man who refused, but that's what would have happened.

It's what would have happened. So Boaz steps in, but the same thing's going to occur. The same thing's going to occur in that Boaz is saying, okay, I will buy the land and raise up, because he says it, I'll raise up child for Elimelech, and he's going to get the land.

Now, that's a true kinsman redeemer. He's willing to do this, full knowledge, full knowledge. So it's a type of Christ. Boaz is a type of Christ in that he's willing to buy the bride, buy that land, do what's necessary to redeem her.

He's not really going to get anything back from it financially, legally. He gets a wife, but it's more give than take. Not that that's the whole reason of anything in marriage, but this is it. It's more of a giving, complete giving of himself for the bride, and I think there's a type of Christ redemptive work in there.

Now, what I think is interesting is that the kinsman redeemer, the close relative, I'm going to assume he's married. I'm going to assume that. But if he is married, why does he say, my wife won't like this?

Are you kidding me? But that's not the case, because the wives would have known that this is what was culturally obligatory to their husband. Now, could you imagine you got your husband, and his brother dies, and you got this situation, and now what he's got to do, and you approve of it, is take the brother's ex-wife and marry her and raise up children, and you'd be like, okay, no problem.

Different culture, different time, right? Different culture, different time. And my wife would say, no sandwiches for you. That's what would happen. Anyway, so verse 7, now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the exchange of land to confirm any matter.

A man removed his sandal and gave it to another, and this was the manner of attestation in Israel. Now, when we read in Deuteronomy 25, five through, what was it, five through nine, she, the one who was insulted by the brother not redeeming and not raising up children, she'd take off his sandal, okay?

The one whose sandal was removed, that was an insult. He takes off his own sandal. It's interesting, stuff about sandals. And so I'm sure this is related to the right of redemption. Now, so anyway, he voluntarily removes his own sandal, so it's not an insult.

He's signifying something, a wise sandal. And I did some research, and to be honest, I'm not sure why, what sandal means in that sense. It's worth a look, but let's get to verse eight. So the closest relative said to Boaz, buy it for yourself, and he removed his sandal.

Now, in the previous verse, it had to be explained to the reader that this was a custom. So enough time had passed such that the custom wasn't really that known, but these were dedicated Jewish people, and they were holding to the law.

And now sometimes, as often happens in a culture through a period of time, what's normal becomes a little bit deviated, which might explain why he took his own sandal off, where it kind of seems as though the sandal removal is an insult.

But like I said, if it's taken off by somebody else and spit in the face, that's an insult. But if you take it off, it looks like it's a symbol of a legal transaction. But look at this, which all this is done in full view of the elders.

And Exodus 3, 5, it says, then he, that's Yahweh, said to Moses, and this is at the burning bush, do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet for the place in which you're standing is holy ground.

Now, I used to know a guy when he would preach, because of this verse, he would take his shoes and socks off. And I liked that, you know, he would preach barefoot because he considered the pulpit to be holy ground, the presence of God.

And I always thought that was kind of cool, but that's what he did. Joshua 5, 15, the captor of the Lord's host as an angel said to Joshua, remove your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy, and Joshua did so.

This was at Jericho when this happened. I won't get into too much about that, but I will brag. I've been to Jericho. I've stood on the walls and walked around in Jericho. So, there you go. You can deal with that.

Okay, good. It was a lot of fun. It was great stuff. And I learned something when I was outside of Jericho. The tour guide, when we were walking up, there was these about a foot, a foot and a half high walls that were like guardrails, but they, you know, just made of stone.

And they were very, very, very old. And there were pomegranates engraved on them. And he said, look at the pomegranates. And we're walking. And this is when I learned that there were 613 seeds in a pomegranate, 613 laws in the Old Testament.

And so, the pomegranate represented the law of God, and you're walking to the law of God. Interesting. He says he took two pomegranates and counted them on his own, and each time they came up to 613. So, I'm going to trust him on that.

It's a great story. I hope it's true. Matthew 311, as for me, John the Baptist, I baptize you with water for repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove his sandals.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Prodigal son, Luke 15, 22, but the father said to his slaves, quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.

Servants went around barefoot. Servants' job was to clean feet. Let's look at this just for a minute. They didn't have socks. They had sandals, and they didn't have pavement or cement. They had roads that they and the animals would go on, and animals would urinate and defecate, and you would walk in among that.

People would step on stuff. It'd get tossed, moved around. You could be next to somebody. Some fragment of something could spray upon you, et cetera. Your feet were dirty. And also what happened is the mud would kind of cake on the feet.

Now, they didn't just come home and wipe their feet, kick their shoes off, go upstairs, go get a shower, come back. Everything's fine because if they're going to wash their feet, generally a servant did it, or they would do it themselves.

But a lot of times because of the culture, you just got used to it. You're tired. You sat down. You might scrape off this or that. You might rub off a couple of chunks of something on your feet outside as you walked in.

Good enough because they often had dirt floors. What's the big deal? Et cetera. You might have rugs on the floor, but the rugs would become dirty as well. So the feet became a symbol of filth, of dirt, and undesirable things.

Take the sandal and throw it at somebody. It's a very huge insult in that culture. I'm not even worthy to untie the thong of his sandal. Whoa. Oh, now I get it. Wow, that's really something. Not even worthy to do that.

That's what John the Baptist says of Jesus. Now, in light of that, remember, when Jesus went to the Pharisee's house, Simon, and Simon did not anoint his head, did not kiss him on the cheek, did not provide even something for Jesus to clean his own feet, didn't have a servant do it because the Pharisee would have had a servant, which is an insult.

All three of these things to not do is insulting. And this woman comes in, who's a woman of ill repute, most commentators agree, and lets her hair down in public, which is divorceable. And then, oh, man, goes over to Jesus at his feet.

Now, remember, he'd be on his left elbow, the table's about this high, and they would lean on their left elbow and they would eat with their right hand, and their feet would go away from the table. That's how people ate, lay on cushions.

And so the feet are away, and she lets her hair down, scandal, touches this holy man, she's illegitimate, she's a woman of ill repute, and then kisses his feet. Wow, what an act of worship and humility that this woman produced.

And it's the most humble thing I've seen in scripture. And wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her own hair, and took the perfume, and oh, wow. And he praised her. Just amazing. To me, it's just amazing.

It's one of my favorite stories. And sometimes when I preach it, I sometimes have to tell the congregation, if I get a little misty-eyed, you gotta understand, this is one of the most beautiful stories in the entire Bible, in my opinion.

And it is. And she doesn't say a word. Not a word of hers is recorded in that thing. And it was just worshipful. It's just amazing. Anyway, so verse nine. Oh, incidentally, the Greek word for sandal is hupodema.

It occurs 10 times in the New Testament. You're welcome. Then verse nine, Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech, and all that belong to Kilion and Mallon.

Now, did he buy his wife? Yeah. Now, in what sense did he buy? And I don't know that one. I was reading through some commentaries on this too. And I always like to ask these questions that a lot of commentaries don't really address.

You can read the text. A lot of stuff makes sense. But then I'm gonna go do some more research. So it says buy. You don't go out and buy a wife, do you? Yeah, you do actually. In some parts of the world, you do.

I remember once a film, movie, I only remember one scene, this beautiful model type woman, slender. She could have been a model, you know, and a TV model if she wanted, whatever. She's beautiful and all this.

And for some reason in the plot of the movie, she was standing up with a bunch of women who were rather sturdily built. They had these headscarves on. And the situation was, men were looking for wives.

And the women would present themselves. And whatever men would pick that woman, that was, you got married, that was it. And so they're going to the, they're going to these women, looking at her teeth, looking at their ankles.

And they go to this pretty one. And they go, oh, useless. Just get away. I never forgot that. I got a big kick out of that. And because her ankles were thin, she couldn't, you know, and they took her hips and shook her hips, you know.

And so I got a kick out of that. That was funny. But the one that was taken with these big, sturdy women, okay, you know. And so I just remember that. Is it worthless? Kind of worthless information, but it made you smile.

So the thing is that different cultures at different times, marriages are done differently. And there are actually cultures where you can marry by buying. They happen. There are marriages by exchange.

There's marriages by dating and long engagements and all kinds of stuff in between. And marriages where you don't even see your wife's face until after you've said, I do. And then the veil comes off and you see what you're, yeah.

What you got. See what you got. Just like, we'll talk about that in a minute. Okay. Can you imagine that? You'd be like, you know, I can see some, some woman getting me, you know, like, you know, I don't know with her, I'd have been like, I was like, yeah.

I remember once I saw a picture of, um, of the cult, uh, out of Korea, Sung Yong Moon, the Moonies, and, uh, he would do marriages and I saw a picture and what he would do is to walk up to men and women, you with you, you with you, you with you.

And I saw this picture and there was, you know, all kinds of races, all kinds of, this is all kinds of that. And I stood in the one couple stood out. She was a beautiful blonde married to this black guy.

Nothing, you know, I'm my problem, I guess, interracial marriage, who cares? But he was like smiling. And, uh, she was like, cause he, he wasn't exactly the, you know, what looked like a great catch. And, uh, but I remember that and, uh, but he was happy.

I never forgot that at any rate, but in that culture though, looks were kind of important, but more so it was raising up children for the Lord, being blessed. It was a part of the duty of the, of the people to serve God in their marriages, raise up children for the land of Israel through whom the Messiah would come.

It was a very serious thing. It wasn't just, we get a job, we have a mortgage, we go get a car. It was in this household. It's for the purpose of honoring the God of Israel. And that how many women might've been wondering, will the Messiah come through me?

You know, nothing to braggy or whatever, but you know, cause the Messiah is going to come through a woman born in Israel. And every woman had that opportunity to wonder, will my distant son be the Messiah?

What an interesting privilege. I think it would be great. So it was a lot of their job. And so, uh, there we go. Okay. But the minute they got married, then they wouldn't, then that they wouldn't be able to do it anymore because they wouldn't be able to bear Jesus because they were married.

If they get married, then right. They had to be a virgin. Once you had, you got married, you could have children. It was the children. But I'm talking about somebody who was, who wanted to be the mother of Jesus.

No, no, no, no. I meant, no, I meant that they knew the Messiah was coming, but they didn't know through which family or, well, they actually, they kind of did to the later on. But, um, so once they got married, they have children, then they would, they could say, they can only say that they're married.

I wonder if it'd be through my, my descendants. I thought it had to be a virgin. It's hard for virgins to have children. And, uh, I, you know, it's a biology thing. It's happened once that we know of, but, um, no, they had, it would, they get married to have children.

And then the wife would become a mom, but wonder if her son or their son of that son of that son of that son down the line would be the Messiah. So they could say, were they in that lineage? I wasn't clear before the guys got it.

What they're in the lineage. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Uh, notice how I sit far away for the kids slap me. I'm out of slapping range, except for one person. Pretty close. I got to move over in the corner.

All right. Okay. Uh, let's see. What's amazing Rasmus, Michael Cohen, and Matt, they did that in the 1800s, the old west, they were called mail order brides, United States. That's right. Mail order brides.

That's right. That's right. Mail order bride. What if you're a woman and you put an ad, you want a husband, you have to go to Alaska, meet this guy. He's a, does something up there and you get in a boat and you go up there and you get married.

Well, like I say, you know, russianbrides .com go check it out or don't. Oh, you did, huh? It didn't work out. It was very bad. Well, I, Nick and I were watching, uh, when I mentioned it last week, we're watching on, on YouTube about a Filipino girl talking about why Filipino women are better wives than American wives.

Yeah. It was kind of a long infomercial, but she does, but she, but it was all kinds of things. Yeah. And she said, oh yeah, we're very dedicated. And again, we like to work. We like to this, like that, like to have children like to this.

And they make great sandwiches. It was right up, right up the front. They call it a lumpia great lumpia or lumpia. Oh, that's a good one. That's good stuff. Sandwiches made easy. Sandwiches made easy.

I've brought that into the ground so much. I'm still getting some mileage out of it. All right, let's get back on the case. Let's see. Always on Thursday evening at this time. Okay. I put someone saying Christian value, man.

Got to go. Thanks, man. I'll try to find out when you're planning on doing more of these Bible studies. God bless everybody. Okay. Okay. Let Laura Anderson smack. Okay. Verse nine. I think I already read that.

Yeah. That we already did verse nine. Okay. So he's making it legal, making it known, making it official. So he's binding himself, not only in the marriage he will be binding, but in the culture and in the community.

Now that's something we are not familiar with. You go to the gates of your town and then you bind yourself before the representatives of that town to do something. And it was important that you followed through.

Your reputation was on the line at this point. This is something that's different. Men's reputations were very, very valuable, very important back then. If you gave your word, you had to count on that.

You could count on that. I remember hearing stories from the 1800s, early 1900s. If two men made a business deal, they only had to agree verbally and it was done. And they would not go back on it because there were Christian men who knew that their word was representative of their commitment to Christ.

And that was it. And so we don't have that now. Now you get everything in writing and then sue me. Now I have friends. If they give you your word, that's it. Good enough. I've got friends like that. You give me your word, done.

I don't have to ask. I don't have to worry about it. And they take their own word and integrity very seriously. This is how it's supposed to be back then. And this is part of the reputation of the man.

So that if a man was accused of being a liar or a cheat, it's very serious. They would often get into fights over this. You don't say that. You had to defend your honor, defend your honor. And think about that as a wife, your husband's honor was just as important for your family.

Because if he couldn't be trusted, that could have some pretty serious side effects for your family life, your children, success, and some other stuff. So honor is a very important thing. And he's before the elders.

Here it is. He says, verse 10, Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Malon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance. I'm going to stop there.

Notice what he says. I've acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Malon. I get the impression that as he's saying this, some of the elders are writing this down. Or somebody who has skill at writing would be writing this down because it's legal.

I think he's identifying. I've acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Malon. He's saying this is who it is, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance. So Boaz says, no problem.

I will marry her, and I'll raise up children for her ex-spouse or late husband, for that family, and the land that I purchase will be his. Wow. That's really something. That's really something. So that the name of the deceased will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birthplace.

You are witnesses today. He says that. You're witnesses. This is official, and it's theological because it's before the elders, and it's according to the Deuteronomy 25, 5 -7 requirement of the right of redemption and raising up children, 5 -9 it is.

So important stuff. All right. So would you say that Boaz was a God-fearing man? Yeah, I would say so. So Ruth had moved from the land of the Moabites serving false gods, and had moved with Naomi into Israel, and was now affirming the true God because she was going with the right of redemption, and knew that her relationship with her husband, Malan, he had died.

He was Jewish. She's submitting to all of that. Boaz knows that. She's in the true faith. So Boaz is all the more inclined to support her. Now, verse 11, all the people who were in the court and the elders said, and remember I said a lot of people would be there, the court, that big area, okay?

We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel, and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem.

And Micah 5, 2, from you, Ephrathah, or Bethlehem, Ephrathah, from you will go forth from his goings, will be a redeemer in Israel for his goings forth are from long ago, from days of from ancient times.

So it's Micah 5, 2 is the prophecy of the birth of the Messiah. Now it says, be like Rachel and Leah. So Rachel was a daughter of Laban, and Leah was also the daughter of Laban. And so you know the story, well, Jacob, he wanted, what?

He wanted Rachel, yeah. He wanted Rachel because she's a hot babe. And so the veil thing, and then they do the marriage and lo and behold, it's Leah. Why? Because you can't give it by my other daughter, you know, she's younger or older, whoever, or be married first.

And so what does Jacob do? Okay, another seven years of labor to get Rachel. Wow. So he worked 14 years to get her. That's Genesis 29, 15 through 30 talks about that. She becomes a mother of Joseph, Joseph.

Joseph's really important, right? And Leah was a daughter of Laban married to Jacob. Now others besides the official witnesses had by this time gathered at the city gate to affirm the legality of the transaction and to add their blessings to that of the elders.

The blessing implies that more than one child was hoped for. Rachel and Leah together with their handmaids had born Jacob 12 sons. Boaz would be rewarded if Ruth bore him many sons to add to his prestige and prosperity.

So the first male born, it goes to Malan's house, the property goes, but the rest is his own with Ruth, the Moabitess. And I got that out of the new Bible commentary written with that. It's interesting.

Joseph's an interesting person. We could study his life sometime, but I just want to say this one tidbit of information, which is just kind of nice. Joseph was in jail for a couple of years, right? He got framed, was in there.

Two men joined him, a baker and a winemaker, bread and wine. And which one was killed? Think of bread and wine, which one's broken? The bread. Who was killed? The baker. Interesting typology. Nevertheless, let's go to verse 12.

The Blessing of Ruth, Naomi, and the House of Perez

Moreover, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, to the offspring, which the Lord will give you by this young woman. Perez, who was born to Tamar, was an ancestor of Boaz and undoubtedly of many others in the area.

So they're wishing blessings on her, on them. May you have children. That's a blessing. Now, here in America, not so much. Now, some families say, how many children can we get? Let's get as many as possible.

I think that's a good thing to do. It's possible, that's doable, and practical and things like that. But this is the blessing. This is the idea, because a woman who had children was considered blessed of the Lord.

All right. Then the woman said to Naomi, blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. So Naomi's being congratulated, and the woman said to Naomi, blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today.